


A Far, Far Better Thing

by Sab



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: (Uploaded by Punk), F/M, Implied Non-Con, Occupation of Bajor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-03-24
Updated: 1998-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 12:23:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sab/pseuds/Sab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a good day. (Uploaded by Punk, from you guys are just fucked.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Far, Far Better Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the rumors of the upcoming "Wrongs Darker" (it's not really a spoiler, since I haven't seen the ep) I wrote this amendment to my original story of Kira Nerys' history ("The Music Makers"), changing the scene of her mother's death to...this. This is set in the Federation year 2346 (Card's withdrew in 2368), on Bajor.

It was a cool room; it was a good day. It was the height of summer, but the air circulators in the basement offices hissed full-blast, and Meru found herself, for the first time in weeks, underdressed for the climate. And she was loving it. It was a hateful place; it was a hateful time. It was war and oppression and the stink of rotting, sweaty bodies that was always there, lingering, painting rings around the edges of the sterile basement office. It was blood, and starvation, and the hottest summer in years, decades. It was a time of drought, the lakes sucking inward from the bone-dry rocks of shore. It was a time forsaken by the prophets, a time of mortals hands bloodied from weapons or slave labor, a time of many, many more deaths than births. But it was a cool room, and it was a good day. She found a smile where she could.

She was filing, which beat mine work a thousand times over, and she had to bite her tongue on more than one occasion to keep from whistling while she worked. It was enough for her not to be on her knees, whip-lashed, sweating, her lips and eyeballs cracking from dehydration; she felt no compulsion to let her overseers know that she was almost, _almost_ enjoying herself. She punched in the next access code on her list, began separating files into subdirectories.

"Who's got 299-blue through 400?" the Bajoran man at the console beside her, Yzak, addressed Meru and the other four workers.

"I just input the last batch of them now," Meru replied. "I'm in the tertiary database in the blue filemanager. Do you need me to find something?"

"I've got a file which crossreferences something in blue, and Gul Namerov wants a hyperlink. Can you upload the directory name to my console so I can do a search for it?" Even Yzak's voice sounded chipper today; last time Meru had worked beside him they'd been digging waste-disposal ditches, and he'd barely uttered two words except to ask her to pass the water canteen. Yes, it was a good day.

"On their way," she said, inputting his server name and transferring the file codes to his console. 

There was only one supervisor on duty, a Glin-something-or-other, and he was sitting crosslegged at the desk, reading, not particularly interested in the parley among the slaves. Chatting while they worked was another luxury not to come again in the near future, and the Bajorans were taking advantage of it.

"Van Teprim finally gave birth," announced a stocky woman at one of the wall consoles. 

"Amazing," laughed Meru. "I was beginning to think that baby would never come out. It's been, what, eight months?"

"It's a boy," the woman, Maiaya, said with a grin. "An adorable little gift from the Prophets. She's calling him Nerys."

"Really?" Meru chuckled. "That's my daughter's name! I know it's a boy's name, but 'tomorrow' just seemed like the perfect choice for a name for the new generation."

"That's what Teprim said," Maiaya nodded, chewing her lip as she sorted files. "I think it's pretty. How old is your daughter?"

"She'll be three in half a moon," Meru said. "She's not talking yet. My husband and I are beginning to wonder if we should be concerned."

Maiaya cast a glance in the direction of the supervisor and shook her head, a small enough movement as to be nearly imperceptible. "No," she said abruptly. "I wouldn't worry." Meru was sure this wasn't what Maiaya had intended to say, and the room felt just a bit colder as she returned her focus to the filing in front of her. 

Something beeped. And beeped again.

The six Bajorans looked up in unison, trying to locate the source of the noise, and the supervisor, upon reading something on his console, stood. Meru shuddered despite herself.

"Aily Maiaya, Kira Meru, Masa Tzo," he announced without preamble. The three women in question stood still, waiting for further instructions.

"Report to launching area five in Singha proper," he continued. "Your assignments have been changed."

//Okay,// thought Meru, preparing herself mentally for the heat of the outdoors. //We're on plasma-unit repair. I've had worse jobs.//

Following the guard who had been standing outside the door, the women started up the spiralling staircase of the sentry office.

***

That was the last time anyone saw Kira Meru alive. When she didn't come home from work that night, Taban, along with Aily Prem and Masa Jiaka, sent out a buzz across the Singha camp to begin a search for their missing wives. A week passed, then two, with the men no more enlightened then they'd been that first summer night. Nerys and Miko didn't quite understand, but Onep, along with Masa's daughter Laren, understood that their mothers were dead by Cardassian hands, despite Taban and Jiaka's attempts to construct plausible stories to explain the disappearances. 

Autumn came but the heat wave never broke. One evening, Onep and Laren were working in the orchards when their overseer informed them that Gul Namerov himself wished to speak with them. Before he uttered the words, they knew.

"I regret to inform you," he began in a low, thundering Dakhur dialect, heavily accented with the Kardasi hiss, "that I have received word from our shipbuilding facilities in orbit that Kira Meru and Masa Tzo have died. It seems that the Bajoran workers were unable to ration their food supply adequately, and I'm afraid your mothers starved to death before any of the overseers were able to procure more supplies. Please relay my apologies to your families."

Onep nodded somberly, but Laren spat at the ground. Onep touched her shoulder.

"I understand," Namerov continued. "You blame us. I assure you, the officers assigned to the shipbuilding facilities are committed to caring for their workers. Any problems the Bajorans may have had come from your own people's inability to cooperate. Again, however, I offer my sincere apologies for your loss."

"Thank you," Onep managed, and, grabbing Laren's hand, he raced through the orchards to the barracks.

***

She hadn't seen daylight in what seemed like weeks. The tent was barely large enough for the three women, and they were forbidden to leave its walls unless summoned, so Meru found herself with a lot of time to contemplate her hatred. They took turns. One night, Meru would be summoned to the prefect's quarters, Maiaya the next, Tzo the next. And for each it was the same. The woman would report to the main building, escorted by the on-duty glin. Once inside, she would be asked to remove her clothing, and she would be washed thoroughly, head to toe, her hands clamped in place behind her while the Cardassian who was sponging her ogled her starved and bony form with something akin to disgust. Sufficiently cleansed and scented with vile Cardassian perfumes (which took days to dissipate, at which point it was time to be scrubbed again), she was led, naked and dripping, up the wide stone stairs to the prefect's quarters. He was always otherwise engaged -- reading, on a comcall, downloading files -- and he'd wave a hand at the woman, telling her to sit down on the bed, he'd be right with her. Between the scent of the perfume and the balmy-to-humid climate Cardassians seemed to prefer, she'd sit, nearly suffocating, goosebumps rising on her exposed flesh. Waiting. And then the prefect would finally complete his task -- she was always surprised, and furious, to realize that she'd actually been _impatient_ , waiting -- and start towards her with grin playing at his mouth. "Well," he'd say, without fail, "what shall we do tonight?" And it was always the same.

Afterward, bruised, sore and bitten, her hips so strained that it hurt to walk, she was led downstairs, her insect-ridden garment returned to her, and she was tossed back into the tent with the other women, to await her turn again.

They didn't even know what province they were in. 

After the first week, the women didn't talk much; they'd run out of things to say. Maiaya had no children, and Tzo and Meru had stopped speaking of theirs; it hurt too much. Once in a while they'd bring up the resistance, speculate on what the brave Bajoran soldiers were up to that would finally liberate this world, but the words were hollow and they knew it. Meru wanted to believe it, but she knew, had known since she named her daughter 'Nerys' that it was tomorrow's generation who would liberate their world, not Meru's own. It was too late for her, but the new generation, the children who were being taken in by the new resistance cels that were forming had a chance at living in peace, and having their world back. But not until then. Not for years.

They never spoke of their spouses -- Tzo and Meru's husbands, Maiaya's wife, left back in Singha -- somehow, that brought it all into focus, made the separation too final, and the horrible violations the prefect was performing on them nightly, too real. Meru prayed to Taban, sometimes, begging him to take care of the children, and to forgive her for abandoning them, but when she was lying in bed under the prefect's heavy, armored frame, she would talk to herself, talk herself to distraction to avoid letting her mind touch on Taban, alone in the bed they used to share. It wasn't the same. It wasn't the same. What Meru did in the prefect's quarters was no different from any other job she'd held under the mercy of Cardassian overseers; it was a job. And she did it. And she never, never let herself think about what this man was doing to her, how he was mining her like blasted stone from the inside. Never. And the women never spoke of it.

Sometimes Maiaya would sing -- battle hymns, generally -- and Tzo and Meru, both with tin ears, would listen solemnly, unsmiling, as if the lyrics in the ancient tongue were some code that, if they could only crack it, would spell their freedom. In an effort to keep them "shapely" (the glin's words), they were fed quite well, but the food was Cardassian, pasty and bland, and the women could barely stomach it. Tzo would eat, and Meru and Maiaya would offer her their leftovers, in the hopes that the prefect would take a liking to her "shapely" form and perhaps give her better treatment. But she would come home from her encounters as bruised as the other two, and tell the same story they'd each been telling, every night.

It must have been early winter when the on-duty glin came to collect Meru for the second night in a row. "He asked for you again," the glin explained. Casting a terrified glance at her compatriots, Kira Meru exited out into the foreign-familiar Bajoran night.

After the scrubdown, Meru started for the stairs, knowing the drill by rote, wanting desperately for it to be over with. "Not yet," the glin said, clapping a hand on her shoulder and stopping her in her tracks. He steered her back into the atrium where she'd been bathed, and slid open the door to a shiny alloy cabinet. From it, he drew a plaited, wooly bundle, which he pressed against Meru's damp breast. "Put it on," he said. "Legate's orders."

She shook it out, and saw that it was a robe, cableknit from some luxurious wool and belted at the waist with a wide ribbon. She slid her arms into the sleeves, thankful for the protection from the dank air and scrutinous eyes. Warm and shivering, she blinked up at the glin, awaiting instruction. "Go on up," he said. "You know the way."

//Alone?// she didn't say, but instead turned on her heel and started for the stairs.

When she opened the door to the prefect's quarters, he was waiting for her. _He_ was waiting for _her_. He was seated on the bed, crosslegged, with a tray of fruit and a bottle of spring wine -- spring wine! --beside him. And he smiled when she walked in. At first she thought she was dead, and was dismayed at the cruel joke the prophets were playing, but the ache in her groin and the teethmarks across her arms and neck reminded her that she was very much alive. Her world was growing more bizarre by the moment, but she was very much alive. 

"Hello, my dear," the legate cooed. "Please, sit down."

Unable to formulate a good reason not to, she complied. "Yes, sir."

"Please," he said. "Call me Dukat."

"Yes, Legate Dukat," she said, furrowing her brow.

"Dukat," he said with a grin. "Just Dukat."

She merely nodded, petrified. //I should slap him,// she thought, //spit in his face, holler to the Prophets for vengeance against all he's done to us.// Hating herself for her cowardace, willing herself to feel some instinct other than self-preservation, she sat stock still and waited to see how this would play out.

"Have some wine," he said, pouring a glass and holding it out to her.

//Yes. Have some wine. Dull the pain.// Nodding again, she took the glass from him, downed the strong alcohol in one gulp.

"Tell me about yourself," he said, refilling her glass. "Tell me about your family."

"They're slaves!" she said before she could catch herself, but Dukat merely shook his head and smiled knowingly.

"Personally," he said, "I despise the actions that Gul Namerov has taken in the Singha facility. Shall I have him replaced?"

"He beats people at random; every month he declares what he calls a 'holiday,' where five innocent people get executed in public. If those are grounds for dismissal in this tyrannical culture of yours, I'd say replace him," she said, her tongue loosened by the wine and Dukat's apparent sympathy.

"That's terrible," he said. "That is no way to train workers who are under your command. He should be nurturing you, helping you learn, and grow. I have no taste for violence," Dukat clicked his tongue.

"But you have no problem with fucking us twice a week!" Meru spat before she could stop herself; Dukat's syrupy words cut her to the bone. Regretting the outburst immediately, she searched Dukat's face for signs of response.

At first it looked like he would strike her, but then his face fell, and he looked at the floor. "I regret that," he said. "I'm sorry."

"What's going to happen to them?" she asked. "Maiaya and Tzo. I imagine I'm to stay here with you." She hadn't made that leap until the words were out of her mouth, but as soon as she uttered them she knew they were true. She was to be Dukat's consort; he had chosen her. She supposed she should be flattered, but hate and bile rose in her throat.

"They will be returned to Singha as soon as I can arrange for transport. And, yes, you're correct. I'd like for you to live here in headquarters with me; it must have been _anguish_ living in that wretched tent all these weeks."

"So why did you order us to live out there?" she asked.

"I had to!" Dukat lost control for a moment, tossing his head, his onyx hair swinging wildly around his face. "Don't you understand? I'm the Prefect of this annex! I am in charge of the entire Bajoran project! I had to set a strong example! Half my men are older than I am; I had to prove to them that I was to be respected as a leader!" He slammed his fists into his thighs and refused to meet Meru's gaze. "But I was wrong. I know that now. A good leader is respected for his powerful mind, not his 'tyrannical' actions, as you so aptly put it. I am an intelligent man. A great man. I am the youngest member of the Cardassian military ever to be risen to the rank of Legate, and I am a credit to my title! Centuries from now, when this world takes its stand as a strong and powerful part of the great Cardassian Empire, people will remember the name Dukat as the man who began it all. And do you know why?" Dukat looked to Meru, not really expecting an answer. There was a long pause, and Meru tried to take in what Dukat was saying. But his next words shocked her. "Because...I love Bajor."

"What?" she asked, leaning over to try and catch a glimpse of his face as he stared at the floor.

"I do," he said, attempting a laugh which stumbled over the lump in his throat. "At first, it was just a job. Central Command sends me out here and says: 'annex!' But this is a beautiful world; your people are so good, and simple, and kind...under our tutelage, you could learn to become great, as we have. That's all I want; all I've ever wanted. For our two peoples to coexist peaceably."

And, for a moment, Meru understood. //They want to be more like _us_. They can be enlightened by our peace, our spirituality and wisdom, just as they believe we can be enlightened by their power and strength.// For a moment, it all made sense; the occupation, the resistance, the Cardassian brutality and slaughter. While she couldn't forgive Dukat for what his people were doing to her world, she understood that it was the Prophets' will, to teach the misguided Cardassian race a little of what the Bajorans already understood about peace, and faith, and love. And she was to be their emissary. For a moment, it all made sense, hanging above the bed, above the two of them, shimmering in its crystalline perfection. It was the truth; the awful, horrible, genocidal truth. And a moment was all it took.

Meru reached out and touched Dukat's shoulder, gently. "I understand," she said. 

Dukat looked up, his face wrought with pain. "You do?" he whispered. "You forgive me?"

"No," she said. "I don't forgive you. But the Prophets will save your soul. I can help you."

Dukat reached out, slowly, and traced a finger across Meru's face, the touch so unlike the violent attacks of the previous weeks that Meru shuddered. "Thank you," he said.

He pulled her head toward his, gently. "Maiaya taught me this," he whispered, touching the corner of her mouth with his exploring finger. "She was drunk; I think she threw _me_ down that night. She used to struggle, and fight; the other one -- Tzo? -- used to scream, to let out these uncanny high-pitched wails. Only you were resigned, were at peace. I could see the faith in you, and the confidence that everything would someday come right. I respect you for that. But Maiaya did teach me one thing about Bajoran custom, and I thank her for that..." So saying, he tipped his head and closed his eyes and pressed his lips to Meru's, letting their tongues taste one another, their moist mouths move together.

Meru sighed, the tenderness of the kiss more moving than she'd expected. She weakened, and allowed herself to fall into Dukat's embrace. //Prophets, grant me the courage to help this lonely, misunderstood man....// she thought. And somewhere, on that winter night, the Prophets heard.


End file.
